The Valençay AOP Cheese and the Valençay AOP Wines. The Town of Valençay and the Chateau de Valençay.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com    

The Valençay Cheese.
Photograph courtesy of Frédérique Voisin-Demery
www.flickr.com/photos/vialbost/5486322753/
 
 
The
Valençay Cheese and Wine

In 1998 the Valençay cheese received AOC status and the wine
followed in 2004. That made the town of Valençay the first place in France to
have both an AOC cheese and AOC wines; now AOPs.

The Valençay cheese and the Valençay wines took their name from
the small and attractive town of Valençay in the Valley of the Loire. The
valley has beautiful countryside with fabulous chateaus and some of France’s
most beautiful villages. Many of these are within 50–80 km (30-50 miles) of
Valençay.

The town of Valençay is in the department of Indre. Indre,
together with the department of Cher, was created from the old Province of
Berry during the French Revolution. Berry has its own cuisine, and though rarely heard today,
it also has its own language. Along with its cuisine, the language is called
Berrichone.

France’s
mainland regions.
The
departments of Indre and Cher are in the region of the Centre-Val de Loire,
close to the center of mainland France.
Photograph
courtesy of aer.eu/
  
The
Valençay Cheese

Valençay is a mild, tasty, smooth, creamy, non-pasteurized
goat’s milk cheese with 23% fat. (A pasteurized version of the Valençay cheese
is available for export). Both versions of this cheese are at their best when
just ripened, and that’s after about five weeks of aging when the edible rind
becomes blue-grey. The blue color develops naturally as the cheese ages. The
farm-made cheese, marked “Fermier,” is covered with a charcoal powder before
sale though the rind remains edible. When I have the opportunity, I scrape off
most of the charcoal and enjoy the rind. The dairy-produced cheeses are marked
“Laitier” and are covered with vegetable ash.

Valencay
“Fermier”
A
farm made Valencay
Photograph
courtesy of Affinord. 

The Valençay cheese looks like a truncated pyramid, and its
weight varies between 250 grams ( 8.8 oz) to 300 grams ( 10.5 oz) with a base
of 6 cm (2.4”) by 6 cm (2.4”). Also available is a Petit Valençay, which weighs
approximately 110 grams. Both are suitable sizes to take home from a visit to
France. Request a cheese that will be ready in one week and have it vacuumed
packed. The cheese will be perfect if placed in the refrigerator when you
return home within 48 hours, and it will keep well for about two to three
weeks. Keep it refrigerated, not frozen. Take it out of the refrigerator one
hour before serving. (For more about buying and taking French cheeses
home, click here). When taking this cheese back home with you, make sure you buy
one that explicitly says pasteurized. Declare it, and the customs will not
argue with a pasteurized cheese.

Valençay cheeses made with organic milk are available. They will
have the word Bio or Biologique a food product is organic the label will
include the government-approved AB logo clearly visible. 

The
AB organic produce label.
The AB logo became part of French law in 1985. 
The label identifies products that are defined as organic under French law.  

Fresh goat’s cheeses will be off the market between January and
February. These two months are the birth times for most goats, and then the
nanny goats need their milk for their young. However, matured cheeses will still
be available. The whole region around Valençay is famous for its goat’s
cheeses. Look out for the local Crottin de Chavignol AOP,
Pouligny Saint Pierre AOP; Selles sur Cher, AOP, and the Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine AOP. 

A few of France’s many goat’s cheeses.
Photograph
courtesy of Marc Kjerland
www.flickr.com/photos/marckjerland/3956521102/
    
The Valençay cheese and its shape.

The Valençay cheese itself is considered a new cheese as it is
only 200 years old! With its truncated pyramid, the cheese’s shape has many
stories about how it arrived at its final shape. The stories told and retold
include a tongue-in-cheek story that includes Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte I. In
that story, Emperor Napoleon I cuts off the cheese’s pointed top with his sword
since the points reminded him of the sails of the British ships that destroyed
his navy in the Battle of the Nile. Nevertheless, whatever the reason for the
flat-topped pyramid, it is the shape of the cheese today, and its taste remains
none the worse for it.

Valençay cheese on French Menus:

Polenta Crémeuse au Fromage de
Valençay et Flan de Sucrine du Berry –  Polenta
is the French version of the North Italian dish of cornmeal polenta. For much
of the European peasantry, polenta was a cornmeal and corn flour dish brought
from the New World and easily adapted to France’s agricultural needs. Cornmeal
saved many peasants from starvation. Today polenta in France and Italy has
returned as a fashionable side dish in fine restaurants. Here a creamy polenta
is made with Valençay cheese and served with a flan made from the Sucrine du
Berry. The Sucrine du Berry is a baby Romaine lettuce; it is crisp and sweet
and sold as the “Little Gem” in North America. In France, the Sucrine
du Berry may be in your salad or part of another dish. In Berry, where this
baby lettuce was first grown in France, restaurants may also offer Soupe à la Sucrine
du Berry, a little gem lettuce soup. For more about Berry’s cuisine, click here.

Beetroot
and watercress on a base of Valençay cheese.

www.flickr.com/photos/ideasinfood/8311593231/

Quiche de Valençay au Parfum
de Basilic – A quiche made with Valençay cheese and flavored with basil.

Boudin Noir au
Valençay, Purée de Pommes de Terre – The French version of Black pudding, the much-loved pork blood
sausage served with here with Valençay cheese and mashed potatoes.

Valençay AOP Wines

The Valençay AOP wines are whites, roses, and reds. The white
wine blends include  Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon
Gris, Chardonnay, and sometimes the Arbois grape. The rosés are made from
Gamay, Pinot Noir and Pineau d’Aunis. The Reds use the Gamay, Malbec, Cabernet
Franc, and Pinot Noir grapes. Even with all these grapes, only 240 acres are
included in the Valençay appellation, and so from this tiny area comes an
extensive range of wines. When you try a Valençay wine, you had better have
done your homework or brought an up-to-date French wine book with you or have a
knowledgeable sommelier as the wines produced under the label Valençay are
incredibly varied. Valençay wines are not a single type of blend.

Rose and white Valençay wines
Photograph courtesy of Loire Valley Wine Tour.com
   

Valençay wines on French menus:

Salade
Berrichonne, Œuf Poché Sauce Valençay Toast de Chèvre Valençay Chaud, Lardons Légèrement
Fumés, Lentilles
Vertes du Berry –  The Berrichonne salad is
prepared with an egg poached in a Valençay wine sauce served with toast
and warm Valençay cheese. The dish is accompanied by slowly smoked lardons (bacon pieces) and the famous green lentils of berry. Dishes with accents from the old Berry province will be on the
menu as Berrichonne. Despite the two-hundred years that changed the name of the
province the people still call themselves Berrichonnes.

Entrecôte Sauce
Vin Valençay à la Moelle, Pommes Frites – An entrecote is a rib-eye steak in North America
and a rib-eye, fore rib or Sirloin in the UK. (USA sirloins are a different
cut). Entrecôte is a French name and means between the ribs, and that it is.
A French entrecote steak is usually prepared without the bone and is one of the
tastiest steaks that any restaurant can offer.  Here the steak is prepared
in a Valençay wine sauce with added bone marrow and served with French fries, the UK chips. (To
order your steak cooked the way you prefer click here.) 

Tournedos
de Lapereau Farci
Sauce au Valençay Rouge –  A stuffed tournedos from a
young, farm-raised rabbit stuffed and prepared with a Valençay
red wine sauce. A Tournedos is usually thought of as cut from a fillrt steak
like a Tournedos Rossini; however, the
word is used to described a thick cut. 
However, a tournedos of a young rabbit must be seen through the eye of
the beholder. From a young rabbit, the tournedos is not going to be a large
serving. 

A red Valençay wine
Photograph courtesy of Loire Valley Wine Tour.com
 
 
Wines from the Loire Valley include the Valençay  wines. 

If you are looking for wines from Valençay as
well as the area around the town, then you had better have done your homework.
Your homework will need a very up-to-date book on French wines and there are
some excellent pocketbooks are available. In the Loire Valley, there over 69
appellations and producing them are hundreds, if not thousands of vintners. In
a restaurant, which in any case will not offer all the 69 different
appellations, ask for their carte du vins, their
wine-list. Then to reduce the myriad choices look for their white, rosé and
light red Sancerre
wines, the wines of Anjou,
Saumur, and the Touraine. In a restaurant, a good sommelier or your French
wine book and a clear budget will aid in choosing the better vintners and the
affordable years. I am not a wine maven and without a book, I would not
remember 10% of the vintners, let alone the years with the best vintages.

Over a three-day period, Valençay has its
wine and cheese fete. It is usually held in the last days of May and the
beginning of June. However, dates have been known to move a little every year or
so. Check with the French Tourist Information Office in your home country
before leaving home or look at the Valençay Tourist Information Office website:

http://www.valencay-tourisme.fr/infos-pratiques/les-offices-de-tourisme-du-pays-de-valencay.html 

The town of Valençay
Photograph
courtesy of Moto Itinerari
www.flickr.com/photos/motoitinerari/20759332392/ 

The attractive small town of Valençay is walkable; it has less
than 3,000 inhabitants. The town has an antique car museum, the Musee de l’Automobile de Valencay; most cars
are pre – 1939. N.B. The museum is closed from mid-November through mid-March.
The town also has a museum of sugar art: The
Musee du Sucre d’Art is attached to a local pastry shop.

In Valençay, there is a farmer’s market every Tuesday morning,
and the Valençay Tourist Information Office has
the dates and times for other markets and points of interest around the town.

A Panhard-Levassor X-17-SS, 1912.
From the Valençay Car Museum
Photograph
courtesy of Daniel Jolivet
www.flickr.com/photos/sybarite48/20254895704/
 
 
The Chateau de Valençay.

The Chateau de Valençay is one of the most
beautiful Chateaus in France. It was made famous by Charles-Maurice de
Talleyrand-Périgord (1754 – 1838), France’s first consummate politician.

The Chateau de Valençay.
Photograph
courtesy of Patrick 
www.flickr.com/photos/morio60/7271645878/

Under King Philippe XVI Talleyrand, the last king before the
French Revolution was a deputy of the National Assembly. Then, after the
French Revolution in 1789, France was ruled by a new National Assembly. Talleyrand
participated in writing the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the
Citizen. The writers of that French declaration included some famous American
citizens led by Thomas Jefferson as well as Thomas Payne and Benjamin Franklin. 

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen were passed
by France’s National Constituent Assembly the 26 August 1789.  The United States Bill of Rights that comprises the first ten
amendments to the United States Constitution were proposed on September 25,
1789 and ratified on December 15, 1791. 
Without faxes or email, these very similar laws were proposed 30 days and 6200 kilometers (3900 miles) apart.

Five years later on, the 2nd November 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte
crowned himself Emperor Napoléon 1 and his wife, Josephine Empress. The new
Emperor’s first appointment as Foreign Minister was…. Talleyrand. In 1804,
Talleyrand bought a monetary gift from Napoleon, the beautiful Château de
Valençay. In this Château, Talleyrand employed the man who would become the
most famous chef of the 19th century, Antonin Carême. Talleyrand believed in a
well-set table along with excellent wines to win over politicians and prominent
visitors to France. Carême and his cuisine brought the power behind the thrones
of foreign rulers to Talleyrand’s table.  

Talleyrand served all masters and promoted at varying times
opposing ideas. Talleyrand was also an ordained Bishop of the Roman Catholic
Church, but turned against the Church with the revolution’s anti-clerical bias.
He became the Foreign Minister of Emperor Napoleon 1 and would later serve in
the same post for King Louis XVIII after the monarchy was restored when the
combined armies of Europe overthrew Napoleon. Talleyrand made tens of millions
for a politician in the 18th and 19th centuries; today, that would be billions.
Talleyrand, essential as he was at the time, would today be in jail for insider
trading, bribery, breach of trust, accepting bribes, demanding bribes, along
with money laundering, and much more!

The Chateau is open from the beginning of April until the first
few days of January and even on France’s sacred museum Mondays. However, French
dates and hours occasionally move around, so do check the dates and times with
the Chateau’s English language website:

https://www.chateau-valencay.fr/en 

The gardens of the Chateau de Valençay.
Photograph
courtesy of stephane333
www.flickr.com/photos/stephaneollivier/30053769558/

Talleyrand resigned his post of foreign
minister in 1807, and then with time on his hands and money in his pockets in
1812, Talleyrand bought a permanent home in Paris on the Place de Concorde,
Paris. That was a town palace that became known as the Hôtel de Talleyrand.
After WWII, that palace was the headquarters of the Marshall Plan, and the
United States still owns the building.

The building is now fully restored to the
former glory seen under Talleyrand and may be visited; just ask directions to
the Hôtel de Talleyrand on the Place de Concorde, Paris.

 With
Napoléon’s defeat in 1814, Talleyrand once again changed sides as well as
political philosophies; this time, he supported the return of the French
Bourbon Kings. The first French King after Emperor Napoleon I was Louis XVIII
(1814-1824), and he made Talleyrand the chief French negotiator at the Congress
of Vienna in 1814. When Napoleon I returned in February 1815 and reached Paris
in March 1815, Talleyrand remained a private citizen. Then in 1830, a new King
from the Orleans branch of the royal family King Louis-Philippe (1830 – 1848),
came to power, and Talleyrand, now aged 76, became the French Ambassador to the
United Kingdom (1830-1834). Talleyrand died aged 84. On his deathbed, he changed
sides again and repented for all his sins and received absolution from the
Roman Catholic Church. Talleyrand is buried in the grounds of the Château de
Valençay.

For those seeking a quieter vacation near Valençay:

For those seeking a quieter vacation near
Valençay, the River Naon south-east of the town is a favorite site for amateur
anglers and picnics. Fishing permits cost some 12 Euros per day, and all the
equipment for an angler, from worms to rods, are available close by.  

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